Civil War News Articles

THE “OLD LINER” NEWSLETTER Nation's library gains The library has acquired a selection Bob Zeller, president of the Center for of her much larger trove, choosing Civil War Photography. 'phenomenal' Civil scenes that it did not already have in “They are so infrequently found that War stereograph its vast holdings. The division’s staff the auctioneer Wes Cowan has never has already begun cataloguing, even handled an Osborn & Durbec,” collection scanning and digitizing them. A first Zeller said. Cowan, a photo-collecting BY CLINT SCHEMMER, batch of 77 is now live on the library’s veteran, is one of the experts in PBS’ Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, website, loc.gov (search “robin long-running “History Detectives” March 29, 2015 stanford collection”). The library’s program. WASHINGTON—Moments “frozen in high-resolution, downloadable scans Zeller said he is fascinated with the amber” is what Robin Stanford calls are prized by researchers and widely collection’s images of Beaufort, S.C., these images from the Civil War. enjoyed by the general public. which fell in early 1862—one of the An enslaved woman breastfeeding “The collection has extraordinary first areas of the South occupied by her baby at “Uncle July’s cabin” on a depth, and many of the images are Union troops. St. Helena Island, S.C., plantation exceedingly rare,” expert Carol M. Plantation owners fled, leaving Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumter before Johnson, who recently retired as the hundreds of African–Americans to and after they fell in the opening library’s curator of photography, said fend for themselves. Northern hours of the Civil War of Stanford’s hoard. “It’s the largest missionaries came and set up Slaves worshiping in 1860 inside Zion Civil War stereo collection that I am schools for them. One abolitionist, Chapel, an Episcopal missionary aware of.” Laura Towne of Philadelphia, started church on Rockville plantation in Last summer, Johnson spent three the Penn School on St. Helena Island South Carolina’s low country days at Stanford’s home inventorying and stayed 20 years. Soldiers’ skeletons and fresh graves the collection based on her The school (penncenter.com) has on the Spotsylvania and Wilderness knowledge of the library's Civil War operated ever since, and provided a battlefields holdings. Hired as a consultant by the safe haven during the civil rights Scenes from the mid-war Port Royal nonprofit Center for Civil War movement for Dr. Martin Luther King Experiment, abolitionists’ attempt to Photography and other leaders’ strategy sessions, remake African–Americans’ lives near (civilwarphotography.org), which Zeller noted. Beaufort, S.C. helped cement the sale, Johnson THE WAR IN 3–D Those and 500-plus other images prepared a 40-page roster of images A cool feature of stereographs is that, from America’s deadliest conflict are not held by the library. seen through red and blue glasses— coming to your laptop, desktop or Learning of a new collection, like available for free from the Civil War smartphone, thanks to one Texan Stanford’s, “makes the field of photo Trust—they pop to life in three and the photo geeks at “the nation’s history exciting,” she said. dimensions. library.” Johnson’s favorite scenes from the That’s how most 19th-century people Stanford is a Houstonian who Stanford Collection are “the plantation would have seen them. Some 70 devoted decades to collecting Civil views show us how the slaves lived,” percent of all Civil War documentary War and Texas stereographs, taken she said via email. “They are great photos were shot as stereo views, by a twin-lens camera much as documentation of the slave homes, were hugely popular and sold in huge human eyes capture the same image their workshops, even the interior of numbers. from slightly different angles. their church during a service. The 3– Now, inside the library’s Madison On Friday, a few journalists visiting D aspect of the stereo puts the viewer Building across from the U.S. Capitol, the Central Vault of the Library of right there on the plantation.” the experts marveled at what Congress’ Prints & Photographs Two Southern photo studios, Stanford has preserved of those Division got a sneak peek at a Hubbard and Mix and Osborn & photographers’ work. sample of the Stanford Collection and Durbec, recorded those scenes. “To be able to add 500 sterographs a chance to talk with the spirited, There are very few in existence that we didn’t have before—that’s competitive person who assembled because there was little commercial pretty phenomenal,” division chief them. market for views of slave life, said Helena Zinkham said in an interview. BALTIMORE CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE THE “OLD LINER” NEWSLETTER “And why is it possible? Because a University who shared her interest in Before he became the infamous woman in the 1970s, raising a American history. assassin of a U.S. president and long toddler, caught the history bug, and But when he died a year ago, “the air before he was an actor traveling the moved from a fascination with three- just went out of me,” she said, and country, Booth was a boarding school dimensional viewing to really looking she stopped collecting. student at St. Timothy's Hall closely and carefully at the cards. The In time, Zeller urged her to consider preparatory school in Catonsville. pictures bring the war alive for her.” finding a good home for her lifetime’s Booth and his younger brother, For the Texan, the obsession started work. She wanted proceeds from any Joseph, attended the school from innocently enough. sale to help finance her 1852 to 1853, during which time they Raising her first son, she read granddaughters' high school and lived in the dorm on the school's Douglas Southall Freeman’s college educations. campus, said Terry Alford, a biography of Robert E. Lee to pass Stanford and Zeller's first and best professor of history at Northern the time, and grew entranced by his hope was that the Library of Virginia Community College. descriptions of people’s lives during Congress, because of how it shares Their mother enrolled them at the the war, she recalled last week. Civil War images with the world, strict military school for boys soon would be interested. after their father died in an effort to Zinkham, the library’s photo chief, provide them with some structure in said its acquisition of Stanford’s their lives, but Alford says the time collection serves as a coda to the spent there may have been some of final weeks of the Civil War’s 150th the most transformative in Booth's anniversary. life. The library opened the "John didn't hear anything at the sesquicentennial by receiving the school that didn't confirm his thoughts Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil about slavery," he said. "That was a War ambrotypes and tintypes, thoroughly Southern school." ANDREW HARNIK/ASSOCIATED PRESS Collector Robin Stanford stands by some of her rare Civil War-era portraits that soldiers and their A large, imposing structure, the stereoscopic photographs at the Library of Congress on Friday. families held dear. school was known for its austere Zinkham said she sees Stanford’s environment and the thoroughly Then she spotted an old stereo collection as a fine bookend to the Southern attitudes of its students, viewer and some photo cards at an sesquicentennial, one that “will carry according to Alford, who recently antique shop, and thought they would us well into the future.” finished a book about Booth. The vast make an interesting curio for the Catonsville's connection majority of the students came either getaway farmhouse she was from Maryland or states farther south, furnishing for her husband, a to Lincoln assassin John and though the faculty consisted hardworking physician, and their Wilkes Booth mainly or northerners, the school family in the country west of Houston. By Heather Norris, Catonsville Times, became a breeding ground of But the stereo images proved April 14, 2015 Confederacy support, he said. Some fascinating to the history buff. Before One hundred and fifty years ago of the Confederacy's most notable long, she was buying them from President Abraham Lincoln was figures, including a few generals, dealers, eagerly awaiting the monthly officially pronounced dead after being were educated at St. Timothy's Hall, catalogues they would mail. “One shot the night before at Ford's said Alford, who visited Catonsville as thing led to another,” she said. Theatre in Washington, D.C. part of his research for the book. After five decades, Stanford, now in In the days that followed, an intense "He was just in the middle of her 80s, had assembled more than manhunt was launched for a a cauldron of adolescent energy," 1,500 stereo views. She calls them Maryland man named John Wilkes said Alford. A lot of that energy, he her “babies.” Booth. added, was spent promoting the Stanford had planned to give her What many people might not know is southern cause. collection to her surviving son, John, that Booth spent a crucial part of his In 1985, when longtime Catonsville a physics professor at Concordia life in Catonsville. historian H. Ralph Heildelbach BALTIMORE CIVIL WAR ROUNDTABLE THE “OLD LINER” NEWSLETTER comprised his booklet, "Catonsville living in Maryland at the time Booth records pertaining to the school and Churches and Schools Before 1950," was growing up who sympathized its history. he devoted 10 pages to St. Timothy's with the Southern cause and who, Located adjacent to the current site of Hall. In it, he quotes liberally from the during the war, operated various St. Timothy's church on Ingleside 1977 work by Enick Davis that underground networks to smuggle Avenue, the school building was provided a history of the school for supplies to the southern states.

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